Tuesday, 04 December 2018 16:25

Using Blockchain to Record & Count Votes during Elections

Many people have heard of Bitcoin and if you’ve done any research on the overall adoption of blockchain-based money is the speed at which transactions take place.  They are too slow for Bitcoin to replace the much-faster methods that Visa and MasterCard use.  It needs to be able to handle many transactions per minute.  

The advantage, however, is that blockchain based record-keeping is extremely reliable.  Bitcoin has proven this because the blockchain is available to anyone, you can go back and look up the very first bitcoin transaction.  Any bitcoin transaction is permanently logged, and that’s by design.  

Because of this, blockchain technology could easily be used to count votes in elections.  Each voter would have their own anonymous ID# (similar to the Wallet in Bitcoin-speak).  The biggest challenge is transition each local voter registration office to be able to assign the ID#’s and keep them secure.  Each state would likely need to build its own blockchain-voting system, but we could develop it under an open-source software license (to ensure transparency) and save each state the software costs.  

Blockchain does not present a viable solution as currency because it can be debased via software update.  But I believe it has proven itself to at least be trusted as an anonymous / public ledger.  

"Before blockchain can even get involved, you need to trust that voter registration is done fairly, that ballots are given only to eligible voters, that the votes are made anonymously rather than bought or intimidated, that the vote displayed by the balloting system is the same as the vote recorded, and that no extra votes are given to the political cronies to cast."

Further reading: (source)

  • "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes ... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. ... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things. ... They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."

    - Steve Jobs

More Inspirational Quotes

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